First, Wilderness needed to obtain Information on students’ study habits. Next. He needed to convert this knowledge ;onto a product that actually helps students improve their studying. Finally, Winooski had to manufacture and market this product using m’s technology. Sound simple? Perhaps. But David Winooski invested several years of his life conducting marketing research on students’ studying behavior. Developing new product ideas, and then creating an actual product students could use. This process of discovering and satisfying consumer needs is the essence of marketing that organizations such as MM use to generate sales and profits, In the process of designing a product that satisfies consumer needs, David Windsock’s invention got a personal testimonial from host Opera Winfred on her TV show in January 2008. More on this later. 2 Discovering Student Study Needs As an inventor of post-it brand products, David Windsock’s main job is to design new products.
He had some creative ‘thinking time” under m’s “13% Rule” in which inventors can use up to 13 percent Of their time to do initially unfunded research that might lead to marketable MM products Working With a team Of four college students, Winooski and the team Observed and questioned dozens Of students about how they used their textbooks, took notes, wrote term papers, and reviewed for exams. Winooski describes what college students told him: “It’s natural behavior to highlight passage and then mark the page with a Post-it Note or Post-it 8 Flag of some kind.
So Its reasonable to put Post-it products together with a highlighter to have two functions in one. ” Satisfying Student Study Needs Designing a marketable product tort students was not done overnight. It tock Wilderness a few years tot creativity, hard work, and attention to countless details. Winooski went back to his drawing board-?or more literally to wood blocks and modeling clay. Some of his earl)’ models appear in the photo on the opposite page. These nonworking models showed Winooski how the 2-in-l product would feel.
